


And It's Only 9000 Miles From The Place We Call Home

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-29
Updated: 2007-03-29
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:33:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If John looks inland, back to where the land falls steadily away, a patchwork of woodland and newly-cleared fields, he can see the Athosian settlement, see where its roofs show brown and red and blue through the trees. If he looks out to sea, to the eastern horizon, if he squints and pretends, he can almost see the place where his city used to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And It's Only 9000 Miles From The Place We Call Home

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Jenn.

If John looks inland, back to where the land falls steadily away, a patchwork of woodland and newly-cleared fields, he can see the Athosian settlement, see where its roofs show brown and red and blue through the trees. If he looks out to sea, to the eastern horizon, if he squints and pretends, he can almost see the place where his city used to be.

John keeps his gaze grounded, though, these days; turns his focus from sky and horizon to the earth, to the broad, flat headland that he knows he and Rodney will one day accept as home. Somewhere behind him, Rodney is sitting inside, cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by everything he managed to hoard against Atlantis' doom: solar cells and brightly coloured crystals, bits of scrap that he studies as ardently now as he ever did a ZPM.

John kneels in the earth outside; the sky is grey and holds only the faintest promise of later warmth, but the air is fresh, and the land falls away from him towards a rocky shore, to the tumble-down and crash of waves. His hands are still learning the feel of Lantea's soil, palms gaining new calluses and fingernails blackened with something other than gun oil, but they are learning it willingly. He plants seeds and coaxes crops into green growth; surprises himself each day with the attention he can give to the growth of tuttle root, or the way rhoba springs so quickly and so tall into the salt air, is unsurprised at how much he hoards each sign of new life.

The sun is almost at its highest point when Rodney comes to find him. It's warmer now, as pleasant as spring gets here, and John has moved to sit on one of the low, flat rocks that have so far resisted his attempts to remove them from the soil. He's looking down towards the breakers, sleeves rolled up, and when Rodney places a hand on his shoulder, John can feel the warmth of his touch so easily.

John turns his head a little, brushes a kiss against Rodney's wrist; Rodney sits down next to him with a little 'oof', and stretches his legs out in front of him. "Lunch is almost ready," he says, "If you're hungry."

He cocks an eyebrow. "Almost-beef stew today?" he says, as if he doesn't already know the answer. "Or is it just more almost-beef stew?"

Rodney's mouth twitches. "I could break out the tuttle root stew Teyla made for us," he says mildly.

"Almost-beef stew it is, then" John says, not missing a beat.

"Gotta love those bipedal not-quite-cows," Rodney says, warm and wry.

John grunts a little in response, and there is silence between them for a long moment, as they sit there, looking out to sea; overhead, sea-birds sing. Just when Rodney is making a move to stand, John rubs a thumb against the rasp of stubble along his jawline and says, "Did you ever—"

He pauses, and Rodney shifts to sit back down, looking at him, moving a little closer when John can't finish the question right away. "John?" he says.

"Did you ever think you'd... think we'd end up here?" John says in the end, which is as close to what he wants to ask as he's going to get.

Rodney makes a little humming noise in the back of his throat, the one that John knows from long experience is weighted between frustration and irritation at the stupidity of others. "Do you mean did I sit down and make a, a what do you call them, a _life plan_ which involved spending some of my most productive years stranded on an undeveloped continent without access to a Stargate, living in something which resembles the bastard offspring of a yurt and a teepee—"

"Rodney—"

"—though incidentally I am afraid I cannot support Cadman's aims to call them a yeepee, but really, no, that was not my plan. And if you're trying to get all philosophical on me—"

Here John rolls his eyes.

"—then I won't even deign to answer you, I will just dig up a very large stone and hit you over the head with it and make this world just that little bit freer from the forces of inanity and the intergalactic reach of _Dr Phil_. No one will blame me, and anyway, the seagulls will eat your corpse." Rodney tilts his head to the side, and gestures with one hand. "Well, most of you, anyway, I'm sure you're rather gamey."

"That's really very disturbing," John says, standing and brushing the worst of the dirt from the seat of his pants, "I'm sure it's going to make your stew even more appetising—let's go."

"John," Rodney says; he's standing now, too, and all the acerbity, all the teasing gone from his voice, replaced with that curious kind of gentle John has only ever known from him. "What?"

"Nothing," John says, when Rodney places one hand on his waist, letting the other curl around the nape of his neck, "I just—"

"You are such an idiot," Rodney says, slipping his arm around to encircle John's waist, letting John lean into the solid line of his body. "If I were a less caring individual, I would be leaving you for the pigeons right now, Sheppard—"

"Seagulls aren't pigeons, Rodney," John murmurs into the curve of Rodney's neck.

"—_whatever_, some form of avian death; but I am renowned for my empathy, so I will settle for hitting you upside the head—"

"Ow."

"—and reminding you that some things _just aren't your fault_, and that no matter how we got here, or however many months I've spent on a planet where Halling's poetry recitals are considered the height of cultural achievement, I chose to be here with you. So shut up." He sounds uncomfortable, and brusque, and utterly sincere.

"Sir, yes sir."

"Smartass," Rodney says; and the smile on John's face is as slow and sweet as their kiss, when it comes. Assurance and affection is measured out between them in the press of fingertips and the hitch of breath, in the nerve-bright spark that shivers and hums beneath John's skin, everywhere. John reaches out to hold on, to let touch ground him; he rocks gently against Rodney, bites at the slant of his lower lip, and runs one palm the length of Rodney's spine.

Later and later, Rodney breaks away a little and murmurs, "Lunch will be ruined." His voice is a rasp, and he shows no sign of moving; his arms are still tight around John.

"Shh," John says, leaning in again; and he's looking neither away to the west, nor back to the east, but right in front of him, at Rodney, his centre, his home.


End file.
